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Impa knows something is wrong when she is summoned to the royal chambers. Perhaps she is too much of a pessimist, but even as the captain of the castle guard, she would never expect to be called upon at such a sensitive hour as the birth of the princess. After all, happy occasions have no need for steel or subterfuge.
She passes the royal physician on her way up the stairs, and the fretful way he bounces down the steps only makes her move faster. She arrives before the royal chambers shortly after, and after a nod to her soldiers standing guard, lets herself inside.
Before the door has closed, her eyes have already scanned every corner of the room. Everything is neat and in its proper place, the balcony is open and a soft breeze is blowing in. Candlelight fills the room, casting shadows everywhere, but none of them threatening. Impa allows herself to relax, but only somewhat.
“Ah, Impa,” the King beckons. “I thank you for your swiftness. Please, approach.”
He is sitting beside the bed, while the Queen lies atop it and under thin sheets of silk. She holds a bundle in her arms, with only a tiny hand sticking out of it, playing clumsily with a strand of Her Highness’s hair.
Impa steps close. Not for shyness or a sense of propriety, she averts her eyes from the intimate sight. Some things are simply not of her world.
“You called for me, my king?”
“Indeed.” The King looks to the door to make it sure it is closed, then stands. “What we are about to discuss must not leave this chamber. The truth will get out inevitably, but for everyone’s sake, we must keep it under wraps for as long as we can.”
Impa nods. She holds all of the royal family’s secrets, and one more will not add to her burden.
“My love, show her,” the King says, sitting once again.
The Queen slides up the bed into a better sitting position, and with loving care, unwraps the bundle in her arms bit by bit. The babe is small but healthy, a curled tuft of blond hair like her mother’s stuck to the top of her head. She has ocean blue eyes like her father’s, and the sharp ears expected of her lineage.
Impa draws a sharp breath. In the back of the babe’s left hand is a symbol she knows all too well. The three triangles are present all throughout the castle, the town around it, and the kingdom beyond. For a moment it glows in the child’s skin as bright as a dragonfly, before it fades under it, barely visible even to Impa’s trained eyes.
“It’s such a blessing, isn’t it?” the Queen says to her, but a bittersweet smile tugs at the corners of her mouth.
“Now you understand why this must be kept secret. The dread it would cause…” The King shakes his head. “Impa. Henceforth, you are relieved of your duties as captain of the royal guard.”
Impa resists the frown that comes to her. “My king?”
“Your one and only duty is now towards the princess. You will be her shadow and her shield. If you must forfeit your own life, or even mine and the queen’s, to safeguard hers, then you will do so. Do you understand?”
Impa turns her eyes to the babe again, for the first time taking all of her in. She is all plumb limbs and puffy skin, with none of the sharpness in her eyes that Impa is accustomed to seeing in her own clan’s infants. This one, she knows, will never pass for a Sheikah.
“I understand. I will carry this role with honor, my king. Until my dying days.”
“Good,” the King says. “Know that in doing so, you are protecting not only my daughter, but Hyrule’s salvation.”
That needn’t be said, but the weight of that statement rests heavy on Impa’s shoulders nonetheless.
A faint giggle breaks the silence. The babe reaches towards Impa, her stubby arm whipping about limply.
“Look,” the Queen says, smiling a true smile now. “Little Zelda likes you already.”
Reticently, Impa leans over the bed and grabs one of the child’s fingers, holding it gently. Another giggle bursts forth.
Never in her life had Impa wished to play the babysitter, but if she must, she will. For the good of the kingdom.
“Impa, what does the mark on my hand mean?”
The question catches Impa off-guard, if only because of its timing. Curiosity has fueled the princess from birth more than food and sleep combined, yet for such an important and obvious question, it was never posed until this day.
“I should think you already know the answer,” Impa says from her spot near the bookshelves. “If not, I question the value of our spending so much time in this library.”
Zelda glowers at her, and Impa catches that the intention is to intimidate her, but the effect is lost by the fact that the princess still has to perch atop two books on her chair in order to comfortably reach the table’s height.
“It’s an exploratory question, Impa,” the girl says, “meant to initiate a deeper conversation. Obviously I know what the Triforce is, and that the left triangle imprinted on my skin represents Wisdom. Won’t you indulge me?”
Impa takes a seat across from the princess. “Very well. What is it you wish to discuss?”
She chooses not to mention that as technically that was a royal order, she is in no position to refuse.
“The mark of the Triforce is a great blessing, is it not?” Zelda asks. Another ‘exploratory question’, Impa surmises.
“Indeed,” Impa humors her. “It’s a gift from the Goddesses themselves.”
“And one seldom bestowed. Did you know that for fifty generations before me, none bore the mark?” Zelda gestures at the vast collection of tomes, journals, and scrolls spread over the table. “You would think the Goddesses would favor us more often than that.”
“Perhaps they do, only in less visible ways.”
“Perhaps. Or, more likely, they only favor us when it is most necessary.” Zelda grabs one of the tomes, opens it to a musty page Impa cannot read upside down. “Did you know that the last princess to bear the mark did so in a time of unprecedented tumult? A great darkness fell over the land, and many people suffered.”
Impa did know of that, and more. The Sheikah are trained in history and myth. This was not a topic that escaped her expertise.
“It was only through that princess’ actions that balance was restored to the land,” she says.
“Not her alone,” Zelda corrects, but she flits past the fact, as evidently it’s not vital to her point. “There are other accounts before that, stretching so far back in our history that I can only surmise most have been lost to time. There is always the mark-bearing princess, and always the time of strife. Can they exist exclusively of one another? Or does one beget the other?”
Impa sits silent, until she is forced to reckon with the fact that the princess is expecting an answer out of her.
“I could not say, Princess. Perhaps some things are only for the Goddesses to know.”
It’s a shameful answer for a Sheikah, who hoard knowledge above everything. The princess wilts, and it pains Impa to see, yet not more than if she was truthful.
“My father is patient, and he is kind, but sometimes I feel the weight of his expectations upon me, and I…” Zelda looks away, her chin trembling. “Impa, can something be a blessing and a portent at once?”
Impa drags her chair back and stands.
“Up. There are better places than a musty library for a girl to be in the eve of her tenth birthday,” she says. “Let’s play hide and seek in the gardens instead.”
Zelda gasps, then bites down on her lip. “But I’m not finished with my studying for the day.”
“Your research won’t be going anywhere. Move, or I will carry you.”
Zelda gives one last guilty look to her tomes and scrolls, before she hops from her chair, smiling mischievously. “Fine! But I’ll hide first, and this time, you won’t find me.”
“Silly girl,” Impa says.
She picks Zelda up and plops her on her shoulders.
“I’ll always find you.”
Impa finds Zelda in her sanctuary, adjacent to the princess’ own chambers, as has become more and more common in recent years. For the last six months, she has hardly seen the princess outside it, and only in passing occasions. It cannot be healthy, but as Zelda has ignored her every attempt to coax her out into the sun, there is little Impa can do about it. The girl is not a girl anymore, after all, but a woman grown – and ten times as stubborn as when she was a child.
Impa leans on the archway that leads into the shrine, watching her charge pray in the shallow waters before Hylia’s stone statue. If she strains her ears, she can make out the words Zelda is speaking – the soft pleas for guidance and averted doom – but out of respect, she doesn’t. Already, too many people burden the girl with their expectations, and Impa will not add her own to the pile.
When the praying lulls, Impa walks in. Her footsteps produce no noise, yet somehow Zelda senses her presence at once, turning her head to look.
“Good afternoon, Impa. Am I needed elsewhere?”
“Not for the moment.” Impa crosses her arms. “Have you eaten anything today?”
“I had some cheese and bread this morning,” Zelda says. “I don’t find myself very hungry these days.”
Impa accepts the answer without a fuss, but decides to have a proper meal brought to the princess’ chambers later. No, she will bring it herself. The only way to force Zelda to do anything is to make her feel she is creating work for others.
“You asked me to employ my eyes and notify you at once of anything new,” Impa says, and she doesn’t miss the way Zelda’s attention immediately sharpens. “I just received a report. The hero we’ve heard scattered tales about – he rides towards Castle Town as we speak. He will be here before nightfall, most likely.”
For a moment she thinks Zelda might allow herself to fall back and sink into the waters, her shoulders drooping, before they rise again along with her chin.
“I would invite you to finish my prayers alongside me,” Zelda says, “but at this point that seems more than futile, doesn’t it?”
She rises from the water, wet feet upon the tiles, and walks past Impa, heading into her chambers.
“Will you help me get dressed? I must be ready to greet him when he arrives.”
“That seems hasty,” Impa says, following her. “He might be coming, but there is nothing to say you will be meeting him so soon. You’ve hardly had the opportunity to extend him a royal invitation. Unless you mean to go down to town.”
“No, I will remain right here, and we will meet before the morrow.” Zelda shakes out her golden tresses. “Call it princess’ intuition.”
As she shimmies out of her praying gown, Impa takes the princess’ favorite lilac dress from her wardrobe and helps her into it.
“This hero,” Zelda asks, snaking her arms through the sleeves, “what else have you heard about him? What is he like?”
“He’s from a far away village. He’s no older than you are. Unassuming from a glance, or so I’ve been told,” Impa recounts. “The leaders of the Zora and Goron tribes have met him, and they’ve described him as very resourceful. Not one of many words. Most of all, he’s brave.”
Zelda hums to herself. “Yes. He would have to be, wouldn’t he?”
When she’s dressed, Zelda mutters a word of thank you and stands in front of the mirror, looking so serious that Impa’s heart breaks a little. But then Zelda’s eyes shift, meeting hers in the reflection, and the princess suddenly moves to one of her desks and opens a drawer.
“Since destiny draws upon us, and we know not what might transpire next,” she says, tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth as she rummages around, “it’s high time I ended this ruse.”
Impa frowns. “Princess?”
Zelda searches for another few seconds, before she makes a triumphant sound and comes out with a piece of jewelry Impa recognizes at once. It’s her own – the only jewelry she owns, a medallion with the emblem of her people, granted only to the most recognized members of the Sheikah tribe. It had gone missing from her belongings weeks ago.
“I’ve turned every stone in the castle grounds searching for this thing. Where did you find it?” she asks.
“Find it?” Zelda grins. “I’m the one who swiped it, silly.”
Impa stares aghast, and every second she does so, the princess’ smile grows bigger.
“How, and When?”
“A knave never reveals her secrets,” Zelda says. She opens Impa’s hand and places the medallion in it. “Here. I was waiting to see how long it would take for you to catch onto my trickery. I suppose we’ll never find out now.”
Impa mentally retraces every moment of the last few weeks she spent with the princess, trying to recall any signs she might have missed, but nothing comes to mind. She had been too preoccupied with Zelda’s wellbeing to observe anything else. She wonders if that was part of Zelda’s ploy, but doesn’t ask, knowing she’ll get no confirmation.
Clearly, the girl learned from the best.
“Upon further consideration,” Zelda says, straightening her collar. “I think I will wait in the gardens instead. Will you accompany me?”
“Of course.”
Zelda nods, her face dead serious once again, and starts to head out of the chamber. Impa stops her before she gets to the door.
“One more thing, Princess,” she says. “Before you go.”
She turns Zelda around, and sweeping the girl’s hair back from her shoulders, passes the medallion’s chain around her neck and locks it. The Sheikah eye rests easily on her clavicle, like it belongs.
Zelda looks up at her, eyes watering.
“I would bear that mark for you, if only I could,” Impa tells her.
Zelda looks at her like she’s always known, and takes such a deep breath that it seems it might just shatter her. “I wouldn’t be me then.”
“Perhaps,” Impa agrees. “But you’d still be mine.”
She plants a kiss on Zelda’s forehead, and her princess clings to her. A long time passes before they leave for the gardens.